Software, Ideas and Inventions (Score 1)

yes of course, patents are a neccesity in some fields where enormuos investements are neccesary before a new product(e.g. in the pharmaceutical sector) can be sold.

Without patents in such fields, companies would have problems to justify high research and development investments if there is no confidence that they will get the invested money back because anybody would be allowed to copy the research and finally destroy the income needed to pay the research.

i agree with you. patents can harm incremental innovation a lot. I also agree that 20 years is a lot, especially in the software/computer arena, where, arguably, innovation occurs at an extremely rapid pace.

I want to add that e.g. in the pharmaceutical sector, you have only a few big companies which can really innovate in this market and a product is usually covered by one patent to protect it.

Compared to the software sector, there are 100.000s or maybe even millions of small and independent developers which all they need is a computer with a programming language installed.

Software patents protect the pure idea, and as the process of coding and debugging is not considered as and inventitive activity, the thing which is covered by a software patent is the pure thought.

Of course, all of us can have resourcefull ideas, but is this at the same time an invention?